CYCLING THE SWISS ALPS

Several years ago, I always used to look forward to watching a television show entitled MacGuyver. I remember being fascinated by the unusual ways that the star of that show managed to get out of tough situations – always being able to make the most intricate contraptions out of ordinary junk that he would find along the wayside. I remember also thinking that the show, although quite entertaining, was just a bunch of hooey! Well, thanks to that ridiculous television show, 241 people on board a Boeing 747 flying over the Swiss Alps are counting their lucky starts that they are still alive.

I, along with 75 other passengers and 165 crew members, boarded the plane at Hooks Airport in Houston on the 16^th of last August. We were headed to Los Angeles, California. The flight departed from Hooks without too many problems to speak of. Maybe we could have guessed that we were at the mercy of an inexperienced pilot when, after already taxiing for what seem like an eternity, we taxied right up a ramp onto Interstate 45. A few minutes later, we were airborne. (You may have noticed several overpasses are missing now on I-45 just south of FM2920.) Of course, as you have probably already guessed, the other indicator that our pilot was a moron was the fact that we ended up flying over the Swiss Alps during a Texas-to-California flight. But – there we were – several hours out of Houston and flying around over Europe.

After a bit, the captain got on the intercom with the announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, if you look out your windows to the right, you will see a magnificent view of the Swiss Alps. As a special treat, here shortly you will be able to get an even better view because we are about to run out of fuel and will probably be crashing into the magnificent Swiss Alps!”

Well, let me tell you, there was just a little more than a major amount of mass chaos on board that aircraft. Passengers were running up and down the aisles screaming to the tops of their lungs – most seemed to primarily be mad that they hadn’t even packed for a skiing trip. Flight attendants were running around everywhere you looked. Half of them were demonstrating how to avoid being strangled by the oxygen masks when they came popping out of the ceiling – the other half were trying to detach the floatation devices from under the seats. I’ve often wondered why airlines felt the need to outfit the seats with floatation devices. I can only figure that the reason is one of comfort more than anything else. I, on the other hand, would much prefer sitting on the lumpiness of a good reliable parachute rather than a soft, pansy-wansy floatation device. It was while I was pondering the lumpy parachute thing that I finally snapped back into reality and remembered why I was on this plane in the first place. I was on my way to L.A. with several of my friends to participate in an international gathering of the Senior Ladies Olympic Bridge Playing and Tandeming Grannies Association (or, as we call ourselves, SLOBPATGA. Yes, we know it doesn’t roll off the tongue too easily, but all tandem clubs are required by a law set forth by Leonardo da Vinci, in association with Wilbur and Orville Wright, to form corny acronyms out of their names).

All at once, as fear was running amok from one end of the plane to another, my mind started channel surfing through a series of MacGuyver reruns. It was coming to me – formulating in my brain as I felt the plane starting to lose power at an altitude only slightly higher than that of the mountain tops. Down in the cargo hold, there were thirty-one tandem bicycles. I was certain that these bikes held the necessary key to safely deliver us from the pending disaster. I wasn’t quite sure just how at the moment but one thing I did know for sure was that I had to get down to that cargo compartment. Taking charge in the midst of all of the commotion, I instructed the attendants to gather up about fifty blankets, a coat hanger, and all of the floatation devices that they could find. Oh yeah, and a paper clip. Quickly, I tied the ends of the blankets together and fashioned a rope. I tied one end of the makeshift rope to the seat framework – the other end around my waist. About that time the captain of the plane came running down the aisle, flapping his arms and screaming hysterically. I tackled him, picked him up and slapped him across the face a few times, then used his head to bust out one of the windows. As the cabin began losing pressure, I shoved the captain to one side, grabbed up all of the floatation devices and maneuvered myself into a position to get sucked out of the window.

Once outside, with the floatation devices dangling from my belt, I worked my way back up the rope until I was able to get a grip on the front edge of one of the wings. Just as I pulled myself up on the wing, we flew through a gigantic flock of winged creatures – ooh! – déjà vu from an earlier article.  Moving on, in an effort to slow the plane’s plummet to earth, I began attaching the floatation devices along the length of the wings. (Need I even mention that I would never be caught dead without a couple of rolls of duct tape and a handful of zip-ties in my fanny pack?) All the time I was doing this, I was telling myself that I was sure parachutes would work much better in a situation like this but who am I to question the Department of Aviation? With all of the floatation devices attached to the wings, I swung myself back toward the plane’s fuselage. Clinging to the rivets with my fingernails, I worked my way to the cargo door. I knocked – no answer. This was going to be tougher than I thought. Holding on with one hand, I fished the coat hanger out of my back pocket. Using my teeth, I straightened the coat hanger and then formed one end into a tight hook. I began fishing it through the weather-stripping around the door and started searching for the lock. It took a couple of tries but finally I heard it click – “CLICK!” The door came swinging open and I was able to climb inside. My hair was a mess.

As I climbed into the cargo hold and out of the wind, I was surprised to see that the other women of the SLOBPATGA had already figured out what I was up to. They had taken the elevator down and were already unpacking the tandems. I took a moment to think to myself: “Damn! There’s an elevator?”  I glanced around until I found what I was looking for – canoe paddles. (FAA rule 334.226.2a: Supply each passenger with a floatation device instead of a parachute. FAA rule 334.226.2b: Back up each aircraft with twenty or so canoe paddles instead of a reserve fuel tank.) Swiftly, I clutched the paddles and got another roll of duct tape and half a dozen more coat hangers then headed back out onto the wing. Working at breakneck speed, I attached four paddles to the front of each engine, fashioning the crudest of propellers. Myrna Steeplebottom, my tandem partner, was apparently reading my mind because she came up behind me with a handful of tandem chains and chainrings. I was sure glad that I never leave home without my handy-dandy pocket chain tool. Together, we fastened the propellers to the chainrings and fed the chain around them and then back through the door into the cargo hold. Back inside, the gals had the tandems all set on trainers and had routed all of the chains so that they were working in unison. They were ready – just waiting for Myrna and me to bring in the main drive chain. We hooked up the final chain and jumped on our bikes. Then, the sixty-two ladies of the SLOBPATGA started pedaling. It was a slow start but eventually we picked up speed – the propellers slowly but surely turning faster and faster. We were beginning to really get into it. Simultaneously, we all shifted into the big chainring. With a burst of energy, we felt the plane lift. We pedaled faster. The plane picked up speed. We heard the cheers of joy from the passengers and the crew members above as we cleared the tops of the mountains. We were pumped! We controlled the power of the plane. I called for the captain and, after apologizing for using his head to break out the window, instructed him to see if there was anyone on the plane that knew the shortest way to Los Angeles.  As I pedaled, I reached into my back pocket, pulled out the paper clip and straightened one end of it. I picked a couple of small bird feathers out of my teeth.

I’m sure my ordeal will probably never make it to the television screen. Its realism is not as far-fetched as one of those old MacGuyver episodes. Still, I’m proud to say that I and my sister SLOBPATGAians managed to get the 747 back safely to Los Angeles. The captain even managed to land the plane at LAX without incident. As soon as I disembarked, I was awarded a medal of honor and the key to the city by the mayor – of course, that was after the plane finally taxied to a stop on Interstate 5 just north of San Diego!

Enjoy the ride!

A STORY OF HOUSTON CYCLING - OF THE THIRD KIND

It is with great apprehension that I begin this article – let alone consider it for publication in a huge (or whatever) cycling periodical. As most of my loyal readers are aware, I am seen at various cycling events around town, zipping along on my faithful Schwinn Cruiser Six – Sixty pounds of black beauty, chrome fenders, black and silver streamer mimicking the jet stream of my journeys…

I digress. Late on a Tuesday night last May, and being as eager as always to savor new cycling experiences, I climbed the fence at the Alkek Velodrome in west Houston and hoisted my cruiser over behind me.  I would have visited during regular hours when the track was open, but I was a little shy and nervous at this being my first attempt at track riding. I started slowly around the track on the level surface of the inner line. As I grew daring, I began to edge up onto the steep embankments of the track. I increased my speed. I went a little higher up on the sloped ends of the track. I started to get the feel of the place – feeling the spirit of a track racer entering my being. Yeah – I think I could really get into this!

I was just about to let my body slip completely into this cycling fantasy world when I was abruptly snapped into reality by a harsh, scraping sound. My Cruiser Six, not really appropriate for track racing, has a bottom bracket just a bit too low for the steep slopes of a velodrome surface. My pedal began gouging into the concrete – sparks flying with each revolution of the chainring as my bike encountered the steepest portions of the track. I continued to circle with my pedal scraping – transmitting an erratic Morris Code-type of noise and sparks into the blackness of the night. With no neighboring houses too close by, I really didn’t think that the sound would be creating too much of a nuisance to anyone but myself.

All at once, the sky lit up with a thousand lights – way more than the adequate lights that normally light this track at night. I tried to stop bike but no matter how hard I applied the brakes my bicycle continued to whirl me around the track. I was obviously out of control. Then the lights started descending further, closer and closer to the surface of the velodrome. I could see multicolored lights, spiraling lights, laser-type lights, flashing lights… Then I felt the heat of a gigantic spotlight searing its intensity right through to my soul. I felt my bicycle kick into another gear and increase its speed. The track was a blur beneath me. The spotlight was tracking my every move. As the speedometer on my bicycle was reading 120, I thought to myself, “Is this some kind of dream? A nightmare?” Then I felt my tires lift from the surface of the track. Rising above the track, I continued circling; I continued to pedal; I continued to feel the heat of the light; I started to wonder if Bill really wrote all those love letters to Monica. (Obviously, nothing was making much sense at that moment!)

Several hundred feet above the Alkek Velodrome, my bicycle was spinning me in a circle with a diameter of approximately six feet. Focusing on my speedometer, it appeared to be showing the number 375. I wasn’t sure if that was my speed or my cadence. I really could have cared less at that point in time. Finally my bike started slowing down and then came to a stop. I looked toward the light and saw a form. A human form. A human form with a huge head (or maybe it was a helmet). I passed out.

When I awoke, I was strapped to a table. My head was positioned in a remote-controlled device that forced me to look at a wall of videos across the room. In one of the screens I saw my bicycle. It was being dissected by a team of aliens. Another monitor showed aliens beaming into garages all over the United States and letting the air out of bicycle tires at night. Another showed aliens stealing shoes, ripping the soles off of them and actually dropping them into the batter at major energy bar factories. On one monitor I could see aliens carrying out morbid experiments with cyclists and animals - things like swapping the heads of dogs with those of the cyclists. Yet another monitor showed endless back-to-back episodes of All My Children. The bizarreness of the whole ordeal just went on and on.

There it was – right before my very eyes – all of life’s mysteries being explained to me one by one. Bicycles cables don’t stretch by themselves like we were all told they did. Yes, you really did remember to pack your cycling shoes. And there, right in front of me on one of the monitors – just as I had always expected… You know how sometimes you could swear that your pedaling has slowed – like maybe your brake shoes were rubbing or your tires were going flat or something, but when you check it out, they’re not? Well, there it was, an alien, invisible to human eyes, riding along and pressing the brake shoes together and then letting loose just before the rider glances down. That’s just not funny!

And there I was – in their master control room – hovering somewhere over the Alkek Velodrome. But why me? Why was I allowed to see all of this? Learn all of their secrets? Witness all of those things and still be apparently unharmed? As I pondered these things, I felt a presence enter the room. I tried to turn my eyes to see who or what had joined me, but the restraints held my head firmly. I listened. My senses tingled with anticipation. Then – the flash of light.

When I regained consciousness, I was back on my Cruiser Six – still circling the track, albeit it a little slower. I looked toward the sky – nothing but stars. The night was still, calm, peaceful. My bike continued to circle but was slowing to a stop. My instincts told me to keep pedaling but my senses weren’t relaying to my brain that my feet were even on the pedals. I glanced down. I screamed. I screamed again. There, dangling down on either side of the big, wide, cushy saddle of my cruiser – two little tiny, furry legs (looking like they once might have belonged to that fox terrier that chases me from time to time in my neighborhood) with paws hanging about twelve inches above the pedals. My very next thought: “Dang! Where is that fox terrier? I bet it can probably catch me now!”

Enjoy the Ride?

MORE ON CYCLING TIPS

Since I have been an avid cyclist for too many years to count, I find myself, from time to time, in a position to pass along bits of information which can be beneficial to people who are new to the cycling environment. I am by no means a cycling “expert” but I am told by many that my advice is very informative and, in some instances, when recited in court, has proven to have helped people avoid being convicted of criminal charges by reason of insanity. My “Don’t Ride Your Bike While Hooked to an IV Bottle” defense, to date, has been used a total of 27 times by pedestrians who were tripped or strangled while walking down the street.

But space will not allow me to carry on about all of my courtroom victories. There are new issues to cover, and none more serious that the one I’m going to be discussing in this article: Bike Riding While Carrying Sharp, Pointy Objects.

When riding your bike in a double pace line and carrying a pair of scissors in your hand, DO NOT USE THE NORMAL HAND POSITIONS WHEN SIGNALING FOR TURNS! Doing this could prove quite harmful to the rider next to you (depending, of course, on which way you are turning and on which side the rider is – but why take the chance that your brain is going to figure all of that out in mere split seconds?) This rule also applies even if you are carrying that little kiddy-type, rounded end, plastic scissors. If you are accustomed to riding while carrying scissors but do not know what a double pace line looks like, then see to it that you ride completely by yourself until you have gained a little more cycling experience in group riding. In fact, once other cyclists see that you are riding while carrying a pair of scissors in your hand, you should expect to hear helpful, instructional comments such as, “Get the heck away from our group you total idiot!” The same consideration should be given if you find that you frequently ride your bike and carry such things as a fork, a garden spade, a letter opener, a metal spatula (most cyclists will be somewhat forgiving if you are carrying the easily bendable, plastic spatula), a fire place poker, a knife, a rope, a candle holder, a revolver, a lead pipe, or an ax. (What am I saying? Who would be stupid enough to carry an ax while they are riding a bike?”)

While on the subject of sharp objects, let me also say: be extremely careful when riding your bike in your bedroom if you are holding a sharp object (such as the pair of scissors mentioned above) – especially if you are riding your bike on the bed and jumping up and down at the same time. (Many track cyclists practice this, I’m told.) This can be very dangerous! If you were to lose your balance or accidentally come unclipped from your pedal, you most probably would POKE BOTH OF YOUR EYES OUT!

To quote my idol, Dave Barry, “I’m not making this up!” – Last year in Duluth, Minnesota, two teenage boys were riding their mountain bikes while jumping up and down on a trampoline. When dinner was ready, instead of calling them into the house, their mother brought their dinner out to them while they were still riding their bikes on the trampoline. Usually this would have been no problem for the boys to ride, jump, and eat all at the same time. Unfortunately, this time their mother had fixed steak fingers, carrot sticks, and asparagus spears for dinner and, after a couple of attempts of trying to eat this dangerous food, sure enough, you guessed it – THEY BOTH POKED OUT THEIR EYES!

Well, okay – maybe I did make part of that up. Actually they had sloppy Joes, mashed potatoes, and boiled okra and they just ended up making a big mess. But still – food got all in their chains and derailleurs; all over the brake calipers – it was a horrible sight. They both wished that they would have had their eyes poked out instead!

Enjoy the ride!

(Note: If you have any cycling questions or an issue that you would like to discuss with Bertha Ashtabula, you can email her at BAshtabula@gmail.com. Please be prepared to take any or all of her responses with a grain – or two – of salt. More On Cycling would also like to take this opportunity to stress SAFE cycling and does not recommend any sport which involves riding a bicycle while carrying a pair of scissors, regardless of whether they are the sharp, pointy kind or not.)

TIPS FOR BEGINNING BICYCLISTS – PART 2

I’ve noticed a multitude of new cyclists on the roads lately. And since I’m still receiving hundreds of letters and emails each week from people who found my Tips for Beginning Bicyclists so useful, what choice do I have but to submit a sequel? Don’t bother to answer that question out loud.

Tips for Beginning Bicyclists – Part 2

1)      Don’t try to save money by wrapping your handlebars with electrical tape. Yes, you can walk into any home improvement store and buy half a dozen rolls of this stuff in just as many colors for a fraction of the cost that a bike shop charges for real handlebar tape. So, “Why not?” you may ask. Well just let me relay this little story to you:

Back before I liked to spend half of my pay checks at the local bike shops, I tried this ingenious cost-savings idea. It was a mid-August afternoon and I had just finished wrapping my handlebars with your basic black electrical tape. It looked pretty groovy! I took off down the highway for a leisurely ride. As you probably guessed by now, the heat of that August sun caused the tape to get soft and ooze goop out from around the edges. Yep, that’s right! The first time I went to reach for my brakes – sure enough – my hands were glued tightly to the bars near the stem. Traffic had gotten thick and I was coming up fast on a slow-moving 40-foot semi. Using my exceptional thinking and quick reflexes, I decided my only course of action was to try and swerve under the semi and ride under the trailer. Hopefully the draft might slow me down or possibly just riding in the shade under the trailer could cool down my handlebar and allow me to free my hands. So, with lightening quick action, I turned to pull along side of the trailer then swerved underneath. This brings me to tip number…

2)      When attempting to ride under a moving semi trailer, check first to make sure that it’s not about to come to an abrupt stop. This was a bit of a painful experience for me. Fortunately I was wearing the proper clothing which included an old fashioned leather cycling helmet so that the ambulance drivers didn’t have to go looking far for the pieces of my brain. Cycling gloves – which have the finger tips cut off of them. But once you pull a stunt like this and completely grind all of your fingers down to the second knuckle, you’ll find that these short-fingered gloves are all your really need now for the rest of your life. Also, I was wearing cycling shorts – which brings us to tip number…

3)      Never wear metallic silver Lycra cycling shorts. Unless you want to hear ambulance drivers say things like, “Gee, what a geek!” I don’t know if we oughta even put this clown in our ambulance!”

Enjoy the ride!

MY BI-PSYCHO-LING VACATION

It is with great pleasure that I return to Texas to enjoy the autumn rides. I have heard a varied assortment of rumors as to my whereabouts the last couple of months – the most common one being that I had been brutally mutilated while riding my bicycle as it went through the automatic car wash. I wish it had been something so simple.

Mid-August found me sitting at an outdoor café in my old hometown of Bodega Bay, California. I had cycled up the coast from San Francisco with some of my friends and we were enjoying an asparagus salad when all of the sudden… SWOOOOP! A flock of seagulls came down and carried my friend Grace away. I could not believe what I had just seen. My other two friends, Janet and Eva, had ducked under one of the tables. My first thought was not of me but of my bicycle. I glanced across the sidewalk and there it was – my beautiful Schwinn Cruiser Six – covered with birds! Not seagulls, but some sort of black birds with long beaks – and they were pulling the streamers from my handlebars and eating the stuffing from my saddle.

My adrenalin level rose within me like a bursting thermometer. I darted across the sidewalk with my arms flapping wildly. The birds scattered - their shrieks joining in with the screams of the panicked patrons of the café. I grabbed for my bike. My bike that was once a glistening, shiny black beauty now wretchedly spotted white by these mad feathered creatures. I lifted it above my head (good thing I did that advanced weight saving procedure on it only a few weeks earlier!) and went running across the street towards possible safety.

Half way across the street I heard a different sound. Mechanical.  An engine maybe.  Sort of like… then I was engulfed in a shadow. The noise grew louder. I spun around toward the noise and in that split second before contact was made, my brain registered… A CROP DUSTER! A CROP DUSTER COMING STRAIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF TOWN AND STRAIGHT TOWARDS ME!!  Then – WHAAAPP! Its landing gear latched onto my Cruiser Six, still firmly in my grasp above my head, and we headed off into the wide blue yonder.

We had been flying for nearly an hour before I was finally able to get my bike unhooked from the landing gear. At the exact moment that I got it detached, another one of those split-second, brain-registering thoughts happened my way – I’M FIVE THOUSAND FEET IN THE AIR!

Free falling through the sky, I managed to pull myself up onto the seat of my bike. If only those birds hadn’t have chewed off my streamers I might have been able to get a little more drag to slow me down for my re-entry to civilization. I clutched the handlebars tightly and prayed that Schwinn hadn’t cut any corners on building these frames as strong as they used to. For my first off-road experience, this was gonna be a mother of a landing!

As I was nearing the buildings below, I began to make out some human forms. It appeared that two men were running and jumping from one rooftop to another. I veered to the right to get a better look. Yes. One man was chasing another one. He had a gun. He was a cop. That’s it – wait. It wasn’t a cop – it was Jimmy Stewart! What luck!  Jimmy Stewart right there just a few feet in front of me - WHAAAACK! The front wheel of my bike knocked the crud out of Jimmy Stewart and he went tumbling down the roof and over the edge – just managing to grab the gutter at the last moment and dangle seven stories above the street below before the whole scene started to freak out like some cameraman was playing with the zoom lens and depth of field all at the same time. (I guess you’d have to be there.) I, on the other hand, went crashing through a skylight and landed on a couch with some psychiatrist who looked like Ingrid Bergman taking notes and asking me questions about my childhood (that 20” Spitfire that I got for my 5^th birthday – the training wheels – watch out for that tree – THE TREE!!!) when all of the sudden Gregory Peck walked in and he had a gun. Then the psychiatrist’s office turned into a ski resort embedded deep within some Salvador Dali painting and Bruce Dern was dressed in a sailor uniform and I could have sworn I saw Perry Mason.  But whatever - I grabbed my bike and I went running down the hall - running right past some guy resembling Leo G. Carroll. This was like some kind of a dream – a weird dream – a nightmare!

Outside and safely on the street, I hailed a cab. It had started to rain. I put my bicycle in the back seat and I climbed in the front. Weird music kept playing in my head – the windshield wipers were keeping time. I fell asleep.

I must have dozed for quite a while. When I awoke, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The taxi had stopped and the driver was nowhere in sight. I rolled down the window and peered out into the darkness – the darkness lit only by the intermittent glow of a flashing neon sign – a motel sign – Twelve Rooms – Twelve Vacancies…

But that’s a different story.

Enjoy the ride!

TIPS FOR ADVANCED BICYCLISTS

I recently purchased a six-speed Schwinn Cruiser from my favorite local bicycle shop and I must admit, I thoroughly am enjoying the advancements made in cycling since the time my other bikes were manufactured – sometime between Wars I and II. However, the bike is a bit on the heavy side - weighing in at about 46 pounds. And, since my cycling performance is improving at an astounding speed (Remember, I did participate in the bike ride out in Hempstead, Texas where I managed to do the entire 25-mile route all in one day! And I’m sure I would have completed the 30-mile course on that ride in Katy , Texas in one day – if I hadn’t have been still experimenting with that whole “sport drink in the bicycle tires” thing – but that’s a different story.) – so…  where were we? Oh yeah – heavy bike. This new bike is a tank and I want to go faster. The obvious solution: modify this six-speed behemoth to lighten it up a little.

Now, many people have commented about the streamers on my handlebars – but they don’t weigh much of anything so I just left those alone and headed straight to lightening up that frame. It seemed to me that there was too much steel holding the back wheel on so I took a hacksaw and removed the lower chain stays. While I was at it, I removed the top tube completely. The latter, in effect, made it look like a traditional girl’s frame bicycle and seeing how that is unpopular I decided to put a new lighter top tube back in. Have you ever “thumped” a carbon frame bicycle? Doesn’t it make pretty much the same sound as if you’d thumped one of those cardboard tubes that are in the middle of a roll of Christmas wrapping paper? Well, yes – it does! So that’s what I put back in place. After a little shaping with some scissors and a piece or two of duct tape – who’d ever know? As for the rest of the frame, I simply drilled a couple of hundred 9/16” diameter holes all over the place. I had started out drilling ¼” holes but broke the drill bit lightening up the steel crank arms.

Not knowing what I could actually get away with on the rims, I decided that I could save weight by just removing some of the spokes. The trick here is to not take a bunch out all on one side like I did at first but rather to space them out throughout the entire wheel. I removed two spokes, skipped one, removed two, skipped one, etc. – all around the rim. I’ve noticed a lot of the “high end” bikes have wheels like this – nowhere near the 36 spokes that the cruiser came from the factory with.

The one thing I really like about my bike is the big ol’ cushy saddle nearly as wide as a tractor seat. I sure didn’t want to sacrifice that comfort for the sake of saving weight – so I just spray-painted it a lighter color.  After repainting my modified frame, I was ready to hit the scales again. The new official weight: a sleek 38 pounds. I was proud!

Now, at this point, I must warn all of you loyal readers out there that these are procedures which shouldn’t be performed by amateurs. I’ve been an avid cyclist for over 45 years now and have somewhat fine-tuned my mechanical ability. I’m currently in production on a video dealing more in-depth with the technical stuff highlighted in this article and hopefully it will be on the market in the near future. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments on how you can get the most out of your bike, be sure and drop me a line. If you find that you’re somewhat squeamish about drilling holes in your bike frame, bring it on by my place and I’ll see what I can do for you!

Enjoy the ride!

DEAR BERTHA

From time to time, cyclists from all over the world write in to tap my vast knowledge of cycling and related (and often, not-so-related) topics. While I cannot guarantee that I will be able to answer all of the questions, I will definitely try to take a healthy stab at it.

Here’s our latest round of questions:

Dear Bertha – Was that really you in the 1968 issue of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue? A.K – Ft Worth, Texas

Dear A.K. – Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Dear Bertha – What really happened to you last year as you cycled from Los Angeles, California to Honolulu, Hawaii? B.C. – Washington D.C.

Dear B.C. in D.C. – As you can imagine, I had packed quite a bit of gear and food for that trip because I noticed that there were not a lot of towns to stop at along the route. Anyway, I had to pretty much cancel my trip just a few miles west of Los Angeles because of… well, let’s just say that one of the valuable lessons I learned from that trip has to do with why some areas of the maps are colored blue.

Dear Bertha – What do they do with all of the fingertips that they cut off of regular gloves when making them into cycling gloves? A.H. – Dallas, Texas

Dear A.H. – That’s a good question… but I don’t know the answer.

So there you have it loyal readers – just a small sampling of the hundreds and hundreds of letters and emails I receive each month. If any of you have any perplexing cycling questions that you need to have cleared up, don’t hesitate to drop me a line – any time – day or night.

Once again, this is Bertha Ashtabula saying, “Enjoy the ride!”